Covered cover

It was snowing, but I had to go to the market. Grumbling, because I cannot stand the cold.

And then I found this: a storm drain cover covered in snow. Happy again!

First snow

Train travel again... Last night it started to snow lightly, the first snow of the year and (in most places in the Netherlands at least) of this winter. Waiting for my connecting train in Amersfoort I was suddenly struck by the graphical pattern made by rails and snow.

Look down!

“Look down!“ is one of my ongoing photographic themes. I made a mental note before there would be a lot to find for this on the Dutch railway stations - not least on my own Amsterdam Central station where there are all sorts of temporary solutions while building works for the new subway line are going on.

Today I had to wait a bit for a train, so I did a little study. Straight from my phone!

(Some images seem to be mysteriously rotated, I'll try to correct that. - Done!)

Fietsen worden verwijderd

Yes, in Amsterdam we have our own China Town - complete with temple. That‘s where I noted this sign. It says “bicycles will be removed“, in Dutch and Chinese - at least I must assume the Chinese means the same!

Photos in Van Gogh‘s time

We went to a great exhibition in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam yesterday: Snapshot. All about how many of Van Gogh‘s contemporaries started experimenting with the first ‘consumer‘ cameras and how this influenced and supported their painting - and vice versa. There were many of their 'snapshots‘ shown right next to related paintings.

Of course I could not resist making a snapshot myself, with the ultimate consumer camera of our time: my mobile phone.

Footnote: Ironically, the very company that made the cameras that enabled these painters to explore photography, is now preparing for bankruptcy. The slideshow features two of the three early Kodak cameras used by these painters.

A friendly shark

Last weekend it was National Museum Weekend in the Netherlands: lots of museums offering discounts or even free admission, and lots of special activities. I did not have time to go on Saturday, but on Sunday it was a gray day - perfect for a museum visit. I chose to go to Huis Marseille, a photography museum here in Amsterdam. While walking to the museum I noticed a lot of things I'd like to photograph, but the light was not what I needed for them and I had not brought my camera - so I just made mental notes.

Two awesome exhibitions at the museum, by Marrigje de Maar and Bert Teunissen - they brought a lot of smiles, and especially Marrigje de Maar's photos also caused some pleasant echoes in my mind from my own visits to China. I spent quite a bit of time in the museum. When I stepped out, I saw to my surprise that the sun had come out, and it was also much warmer now. So I quickly walked back home, grabbed my camera, and went right out again, retracing my steps and following my mental notes (and finding a few more things along the way).

Here's one sample shot for my ongoing project 'Dutch Bikes' (the idea is to make a website for it, but for now I'm just collecting). This friendly shark (a transport bike or 'bakfiets' as we call them) was quite near my home, basking in the spring sunlight:

Below, two amusing details (at 100%):

Just this bike made my day - but the exhibitions made it a fantastic day. If you're in or near Amsterdam: the exhibitions will last till 5 June 2011 - highly recommended.

Where is my login link?

OK, so I didn't visit Amplify for a while. It happens. Especially when I'm busy (and I am).

Just now, I followed a link from someone on identi.ca and ended up on an Amplify page. At the top of that page, I see a big button "login with Twitter" and another big button "login with Facebook". Fine.

But I see no normal login link on that page!

I actually have to navigate away from that page to find a normal 'login' link - and when I follow that I am greeted with yet another big button "login with Twitter", yet another big button "login with Facebook" - and a teeny tiny 'login' link which finally brings me to an actual, normal login form.

And then I have to find that page I landed on all over again.

Can we have equal rights, please?

As in: a login link everywhere that takes us straight to a login form. (Yes it can have buttons as well). Don't make us jump through so many hoops!

Thanks for listening. :)

I just ripped out a nice-looking visitor #map that didn't show anything but an empty map and put a new one in - in a color that fits my Amplify color scheme, even.

Dear Google... How Black Hat and Grey Hat SEO methods still work...

This week's High Rankings Advisor Newsletter makes rather depressing reading, with its headline article explaining how all the things good Search Engine Optimizers tell you to avoid, and which Google says they'll penalize actually still work.

If you search a lot, you can see it for yourselves. And it's not just Google either, it's all the main search engines.

The second article in the newsletter, Twitter Question of the Week shows answers from Twitterers with the same depressing observations.

So what if you need to promote your content or services?

Start by reading both those articles in full. Both tell you about the 'spammy' techniques that still work - but they translate into similar non-spammy techniques you could use that work as well.

But if they work, shouldn't you start doing these things? I say not! They may give you high rankings, but are likely to annoy visitors. A lot of visits don't necessarily translate in a lot of 'conversions' - people actually buying your product or services.

Should you then consolidate all your content in one big site? No, that's not true any longer either. Increase your footprint, use social media (and use them wisely, to build relationships rather than spam), get profiles out there, use different sites. You do not even need your own website or own domain (though those will help). It doesn't need to cost the earth: all the best social services are free to use (and some are free as in freedom, and will let you install your own), and there are places out there where you can build your own good-looking website for free, and sometimes even tie that to your own domain (domains aren't expensive these days).

My own take is this: increase your footprint, have a 'presence' in a lot of places (and link them to each other), but make sure they have good content, too, content for human readers, not just crafted for search engines. But be consistent in your 'branding': use the same name in all your online efforts (if you have different products or services, you could use one for each, but stay consistent). That way you can increase your visibility in the search engines without annoying visitors.

Meanwhile, signing up for that free newsletter could be a good start.

Amplify’d from www.highrankings.com

Dear Google...Stop Making Me Look Like a Fool!

September 22, 2010

Dear Google, I'm tired of you making me look like a fool. I've spent a good portion of the last 10 years patiently explaining to business owners and budding SEO enthusiasts that the key to being found in Google is to have one, great, all-encompassing website. That throwing up multiple keyword-rich domain doorway sites is a fool's errand. That writing crappy articles and submitting them to networks full of other crappy articles is a waste of time and bandwidth. That keyword-stuffed gibberish on your website just makes it look stupid. That link farms are spammy.

And I really thought that by 2010 all of the above would be 100% true. And yet they're not. I'm not sure if they're even 50% true.Read more at www.highrankings.com

about.me - an interesting new service

If you want to promote yourself online, it's good to increase your 'footprint' as a way of doing 'off-site' search engine optimization: increasing the chances that people will actually find you and your site(s). But then you tend to end up with a ton of profiles that are all a little (or a lot) different. How do you ensure people can find all you've written about you?

The new About.me service aims to provide a solution in the form of a 'personal splash page' that ties it all together and provides analytics to boot. Still in private beta, but if you're interested you can pre-register and reserve your URL with the service. Free (as in beer) at least for now.

Since I'm currently working on increasing my 'footprint', I'm definitely interested! I've signed up and 'reserved' my URL already.

Amplify’d from about.me

A custom splash page & personal analytics dashboard

Interested? About.me is in private beta but we’re sending out new invites daily. Enter your email and a URL below and we’ll let you know when you can create your splash page. Read more at about.me